Use custom Docker images for the GitLab chart | GitLab
Default image format
Example values file
Use custom Docker images for the GitLab chart
In certain scenarios (i.e. offline environments), you may want to bring your own images rather than pulling them down from the Internet. This requires specifying your own Docker image registry/repository for each of the charts that make up the GitLab release.
Default image format
Our default format for the image in most cases includes the full path to the image, excluding the tag:
The end result will be
repo.example.com/image:custom-tag
.
Example values file
There is an example values file that demonstrates how to configure a custom Docker registry/repository and tag. You can copy relevant sections of this file for your own releases.
Some of the charts (especially third party charts) sometimes have slightly different conventions for specifying the image registry/repository and tag. You can find documentation for third party charts on the Artifact Hub.
Set up standalone PostgreSQL database | GitLab
Create VM with Omnibus GitLab
Configure Omnibus GitLab
Set up standalone PostgreSQL database
We’ll make use of the Omnibus GitLab package for Ubuntu. This package provides versions of the services that are guaranteed to be compatible with the charts’ services.
Create VM with Omnibus GitLab
Create a VM on your provider of choice, or locally. This was tested with VirtualBox, KVM, and Bhyve.
Ensure that the instance is reachable from the cluster.
Install Ubuntu Server onto the VM that you have created. Ensure that
openssh-server
is installed, and that all packages are up to date.
Configure networking and a hostname. Make note of the hostname/IP, and ensure it is both resolvable and reachable from your Kubernetes cluster.
Be sure firewall policies are in place to allow traffic.
Follow the installation instructions for Omnibus GitLab. When you perform the package installation,
do not
provide the
EXTERNAL_URL=
value. We do not want automatic configuration to occur, as we’ll provide a very specific configuration in the next step.
Configure Omnibus GitLab
Create a minimal
gitlab.rb
file to be placed at
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
. Be very explicit about what is enabled on this node, use the contents below.
Note
: This example is not intended to provide PostgreSQL for scaling.
NOTE
: The values below should be replaced
DB_USERNAME
default username is
gitlab
DB_PASSSWORD
unencoded value
DB_ENCODED_PASSWORD
encoded value of
DB_PASSWORD
. Can be generated by replacing
DB_USERNAME
and
DB_PASSWORD
with real values in:
echo -n 'DB_PASSSWORDDB_USERNAME' | md5sum - | cut -d' ' -f1
AUTH_CIDR_ADDRESS
configure the CIDRs for MD5 authentication, should be the smallest possible subnets of your cluster or it’s gateway. For minikube, this value is
192.168.100.0/12
# Change the address below if you do not want PG to listen on all available addresses postgresql['listen_address']='0.0.0.0' # Set to approximately 1/4 of available RAM. postgresql['shared_buffers']="512MB" # This password is: `echo -n '${password}${username}' | md5sum - | cut -d' ' -f1` # The default username is `gitlab` postgresql['sql_user_password']="DB_ENCODED_PASSWORD" # Configure the CIDRs for MD5 authentication postgresql['md5_auth_cidr_addresses']=['AUTH_CIDR_ADDRESSES'] # Configure the CIDRs for trusted authentication (passwordless) postgresql['trust_auth_cidr_addresses']=['127.0.0.1/24']
After creating
gitlab.rb
, we’ll reconfigure the package with
gitlab-ctl reconfigure
. Once the task has completed, check the running processes with
gitlab-ctl status
. The output should appear as such:
MinIO is an object storage server that exposes S3-compatible APIs.
MinIO can be deployed to several different platforms. To launch a new MinIO instance,
follow their Quickstart Guide.
Be sure to secure access to the MinIO server with TLS.
To connect GitLab to an external MinIO instance,
first create MinIO buckets for the GitLab application, using the bucket names
in this example configuration file.
Using the MinIO client, create the necessary buckets before use:
mc mb gitlab-registry-storage mc mb gitlab-lfs-storage mc mb gitlab-artifacts-storage mc mb gitlab-uploads-storage mc mb gitlab-packages-storage mc mb gitlab-backup-storage
Once the buckets have been created, GitLab can be configured to use the MinIO instance.
See example configuration in
rails.minio.yaml
and
registry.minio.yaml
in the examples folder.
Configure the GitLab chart with an external database | GitLab
Configure the GitLab chart with an external database
For a production-ready GitLab chart deployment, use an external database.
Prerequisites:
A deployment of PostgreSQL 12 or later. If you do not have one, consider
a cloud provided solution like AWS RDS PostgreSQL
or GCP Cloud SQL. For a self-managed solution,
consider the Omnibus GitLab package.
An empty database named
gitlabhq_production
by default.
A user with full database access. See the
external database documentation for details.
A Kubernetes Secret with the password for the database user.
The
pg_trgm
and
btree_gist
extensions. If you don’t provide an account with
the Superuser flag to GitLab, ensure these extensions are loaded prior to
proceeding with the database installation.
Networking prerequisites:
Ensure that the database is reachable from the cluster. Be sure that your firewall policies allow traffic.
If you plan to use PostgreSQL as a load balancing cluster and Kubernetes
DNS for service discovery, when you install the
bitnami/postgresql
chart,
use
--set slave.service.clusterIP=None
.
This setting configures the PostgreSQL secondary service as a headless service to
allow DNS
A
records to be created for each secondary instance.
For an example of how to use Kubernetes DNS for service discovery,
see
examples/database/values-loadbalancing-discover.yaml
.
To configure the GitLab chart to use an external database:
Set the following parameters:
postgresql.install
: Set to
false
to disable the embedded database.
global.psql.host
: Set to the hostname of the external database, can be a domain or an IP address.
global.psql.password.secret
: The name of the secret that contains the database password for the
gitlab
user.
global.psql.password.key
: Within the secret, the key that contains the password.
Optional. The following items can be further customized if you are not using the defaults:
global.psql.port
: The port the database is available on. Defaults to
5432
.
global.psql.database
: The name of the database.
global.psql.username
: The user with access to the database.
Optional. If you use a mutual TLS connection to the database, set the following:
global.psql.ssl.secret
: A secret that contains the client certificate, key, and certificate authority.
global.psql.ssl.serverCA
: In the secret, the key that refers to the certificate authority (CA).
global.psql.ssl.clientCertificate
: In the secret, the key that refers to the client certificate.
global.psql.ssl.clientKey
: In the secret, the client.
When you deploy the GitLab chart, add the values by using the
--set
flag. For example:
The instructions here make use of the Omnibus GitLab package for Ubuntu.
This package provides versions of the services that are guaranteed to be compatible with the charts’ services.
Create VM with Omnibus GitLab
Create a VM on your provider of choice, or locally. This was tested with VirtualBox, KVM, and Bhyve.
Ensure that the instance is reachable from the cluster.
Install Ubuntu Server onto the VM that you have created. Ensure that
openssh-server
is installed, and that all packages are up to date.
Configure networking and a hostname. Make note of the hostname/IP, and ensure it is both resolvable and reachable from your Kubernetes cluster.
Be sure firewall policies are in place to allow traffic.
Follow the installation instructions for Omnibus GitLab. When you perform the package installation,
do not
provide the
EXTERNAL_URL=
value. We do not want automatic configuration to occur, as we’ll provide a very specific configuration in the next step.
Configure Omnibus GitLab
Create a minimal
gitlab.rb
file to be placed at
/etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
. Be
very
explicit about what’s enabled on this node, using the following contents
based on the documentation for
running Gitaly on its own server.
NOTE
: The values below should be replaced
AUTH_TOKEN
should be replaced with the value in the
gitaly-secret
secret
GITLAB_URL
should be replaced with the URL of the GitLab instance
SHELL_TOKEN
should be replaced with the value in the
gitlab-shell-secret
secret
# Avoid running unnecessary services on the Gitaly server postgresql['enable']=false redis['enable']=false nginx['enable']=false puma['enable']=false sidekiq['enable']=false gitlab_workhorse['enable']=false grafana['enable']=false gitlab_exporter['enable']=false gitlab_kas['enable']=false
# If you run a seperate monitoring node you can disable these services prometheus['enable']=false alertmanager['enable']=false
# If you don't run a seperate monitoring node you can # Enable Prometheus access & disable these extra services # This makes Prometheus listen on all interfaces. You must use firewalls to restrict access to this address/port. # prometheus['listen_address'] = '0.0.0.0:9090' # prometheus['monitor_kubernetes'] = false
# If you don't want to run monitoring services uncomment the following (not recommended) # node_exporter['enable'] = false
# Prevent database connections during 'gitlab-ctl reconfigure' gitlab_rails['auto_migrate']=false
# Configure the gitlab-shell API callback URL. Without this, `git push` will # fail. This can be your 'front door' GitLab URL or an internal load # balancer. gitlab_rails['internal_api_url']='GITLAB_URL' gitlab_shell['secret_token']='SHELL_TOKEN'
# Make Gitaly accept connections on all network interfaces. You must use # firewalls to restrict access to this address/port. # Comment out following line if you only want to support TLS connections gitaly['listen_addr']="0.0.0.0:8075"
# Authentication token to ensure only authorized servers can communicate with # Gitaly server gitaly['auth_token']='AUTH_TOKEN'
# To use TLS for Gitaly you need to add gitaly['tls_listen_addr']="0.0.0.0:8076" gitaly['certificate_path']="path/to/cert.pem" gitaly['key_path']="path/to/key.pem"
After creating
gitlab.rb
, reconfigure the package with
gitlab-ctl reconfigure
.
Once the task has completed, check the running processes with
gitlab-ctl status
.
The output should appear as such:
Configure the GitLab chart with an external Gitaly | GitLab
Configure the chart
Multiple external Gitaly
Connecting to external Gitaly over TLS
Configure the GitLab chart with an external Gitaly
This document intends to provide documentation on how to configure this Helm chart with an external Gitaly service.
If you don’t have Gitaly configured, for on-premise or deployment to VM,
consider using our Omnibus GitLab package.
External Gitaly
services
can be provided by Gitaly nodes, or
Praefect clusters.
Configure the chart
Disable the
gitaly
chart and the Gitaly service it provides, and point the other services to the external service.
You need to set the following properties:
global.gitaly.enabled
: Set to
false
to disable the included Gitaly chart.
global.gitaly.external
: This is an array of external Gitaly service(s).
global.gitaly.authToken.secret
: The name of the secret which contains the token for authentication.
global.gitaly.authToken.key
: The key within the secret, which contains the token content.
The external Gitaly services will make use of their own instances of GitLab Shell.
Depending your implementation, you can configure those with the secrets from this
chart, or you can configure this chart’s secrets with the content from a predefined
source.
You
may
need to set the following properties:
global.shell.authToken.secret
: The name of the secret which contains secret for GitLab Shell.
global.shell.authToken.key
: The key within the secret, which contains the secret content.
A complete example configuration, with two external services (
external-gitaly.yml
):
If your implementation uses multiple Gitaly nodes external to these charts,
you can define multiple hosts as well. The syntax is slightly different, as
to allow the complexity required.
An example values file is provided, which shows the
appropriate set of configuration. The content of this values file is not
interpreted correctly via
--set
arguments, so should be passed to Helm
with the
-f / --values
flag.
Connecting to external Gitaly over TLS
If your external Gitaly server listens over TLS port,
you can make your GitLab instance communicate with it over TLS. To do this, you
have to
Create a Kubernetes secret containing the certificate of the Gitaly
server
kubectl create secret generic gitlab-gitaly-tls-certificate --from-file=gitaly-tls.crt=<path to certificate>
Add the certificate of external Gitaly server to the list of
custom Certificate Authorities
In the values file, specify the following
You can choose any valid secret name and key for this, but make
sure the key is unique across all the secrets specified in
customCAs
to avoid
collision since all keys within the secrets will be mounted. You
do not
need to provide the key for the certificate, as this is the
client side
.